CHESTER — By all accounts, it’s been a bye week to rest and refresh for the Philadelphia Union.

What it hasn’t been, though, is a major rethink of the Union’s plan of attack for a playoff berth that appears to be quickly getting away from them.

Manager John Hackworth struck a familiar chord Wednesday at his weekly press conference about staying the course. The fact that those tactics have yielded just five points in the standings since Aug. 1 and just one goal on the scoreboard in the last five matches, well that’s secondary to the process Hackworth stresses with his players.

“I feel really good about the way were playing,” Hackworth said. “I know the perception is that we’re having a slide, but based on performance, based on what we were able to do against Houston and games before that, throw out the half against San Jose and the first half against New England, but taking into consideration the Montreal game, I think we’re in a good spot. We have everything to play for. It’s up to us. I think we’re in a spot that most of us would’ve taken at the start of the year.”

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What the concrete steps to a turnaround entail starting with Friday’s trip to Sporting Kansas City (8 p.m., NBCSN) are coming into focus. The only injury worries are minor, in the form of Keon Daniel’s groin and a flare-up of plantar fasciitis for Sebastien Le Toux.

All Hackworth was willing to share Wednesday was who wouldn’t be there for the stretch drive. A move to a creative midfield player like Roger Torres, who has been limited to a mere 37 minutes in MLS play this season, would amount to “reaching for straws.” The reintroduction of a player like Kleberson, the club’s second ever designated player for whom playing time has been scarce despite an often-misfiring midfield, also sounded unlikely.

“I think every guy on our roster has a very important role to play, but similar to the way I talked about Roger earlier, I wouldn’t expect us to go to desperate lengths and play guys that haven’t been a part of what we do all year,” Hackworth said. “… I’m trying to put 11 players on the field that game in and game out, give us the best chance to win. And Kleberson has been a big part of that. But I would go back to the real reasons that he is here and what he has done for the club. And those are different for our coaching staff and for the players in the locker room.”

What Hackworth and his staff are going with, though, is a bit of faith — faith that a substantially similar starting XI as that which has put the ball in the back of the net once (that counted, as Hackworth would point out, though still only three total times) in five matches will turn things around.

Hackworth is also steadfast in clinging to the notion of the Union as snakebitten by bad calls of late, ones that make their results not representative of the play on the field.

Where the woe-is-me rhetoric fails, though, is in the Eastern Conference standings, where merely mediocre could’ve all but clinched a playoff spot, yet teams have been unwilling or unable to step up. The Union find themselves in seventh, tied in points with Chicago but trailing because they have one fewer win.

For all their struggles, they are just a point behind fifth-place New England for the final playoff spot, and still within reach of fourth-place Houston (43 points), which has only pulled away thanks to consecutive wins over the Union and Western Conference bottom-dweller Chivas USA.

Yet even with eighth-place Columbus (38 points, though the Union have a game in hand) creeping up quickly, Hackworth maintains that the Union are not at panic stations. At least not yet.

“It becomes desperate when you’re not playing well, when you’re not creating chances,” he said. “But if you’ve been in this game long enough, you come to realize it’s a cruel game and you’re going to go through times where they’re not falling for you. But you don’t want to hit the panic button. You want to believe in what you’re doing and how you’re doing it and that’s where we are right now. That’s probably why I sound the way I do, that our team is in a better spot than the perception that’s out there.”